


You Miss All the Shots You Don't Take

by firelord65



Series: Fecky's Whumptober Oneshots [28]
Category: Divergent (Movies), Divergent Series - Veronica Roth
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Post-Initiation (Divergent), Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:47:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27296647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firelord65/pseuds/firelord65
Summary: Peter makes some threats, but he's just not that good at following through on them.
Series: Fecky's Whumptober Oneshots [28]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950469
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	You Miss All the Shots You Don't Take

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: So I definitely took the prompt I picked today at a very non-literal kind of way. It's probably the most tenuous/bullshit of the ones I've done. Oops XD Oh well. It's open season on Divergents, eh?
> 
> Whumptober Day 28: Such Wow. Many Normal. Very Oops. - ~~Accidents~~ | Hunting Season | ~~Mugged~~

When I'd first been told by Tori that I was Divergent, I hadn't really understood what that had meant. She shuffled me out the back door and covered for me by manually entering my final assessment as Abnegation without fully explaining. Not that she would have been able to in such a short time anyway, but I did wonder now if she had explained more if I would have made the same decisions that I had.

Plunging myself headfirst into the lion's den of Dauntless had been the second worst choice I could have made. The worst, clearly, would have been to wander eyes closed into Erudite instead. Thankfully my instincts were only halfway shoddy and I ended up scraping through Initiation without too many incidents. Four had guessed that I might have been Divergent I think mostly because he was fascinated by another Abnegation defector. Since no one else had put two and two together, I had taken a victory lap and considered the matter resolved.

Hah.

I remained just as exposed each day as I had been when I first walked into the faction. Nothing had changed after all. Just because I had been accepted into the faction by my merits didn't mean that my brain chemistry could simply be _ignored_. Fundamentally I was still that same Divergent girl that had jumped off of the train with a bloody palm and a daydream about being brave and true.

Taking in the quiet of the early morning training room, I allowed myself a smirk. Well, not _exactly_ the same girl. I had learned and grown and bleed a bit more in the weeks and months since then. Today I had slipped into the gym for some cardio before the rest of my schedule. Checking that my boots were tied properly and my hair tucked into my cap I moved to the stretch of mirrors and started my warm up.

Because I was paranoid - rightly so, Tori reminded me whenever she saw me at the end of her shift and the start of mine - I was taking every precaution to remain a faultless Dauntless. If I made the effort to keep up my physical condition and worked to blend into the cogs that made up the Dauntless army, I surely couldn't be considered as a Divergent troublemaker. Would I have loved to sleep in like Christina was today? Absolutely. But Christina didn't have to overthink her every move. She was enjoying her first assignment with the search and rescue crew, bonding easily with the team. Nearly every day it seemed like she was introducing me to someone new from her assignment.

Jogging lightly on my feet, I zoned out. I certainly hadn't been an exercise maven when I was in Abnegation; anything that we had learned in Phys Ed had been tempered by the painful need to blend into the backdrop of the gymnasium. Now though I was pretty comfortable with the routine that I'd built out. I almost didn't mind, really, when the alarm went off in the mornings and I slipped on my stretch leggings and tank.

Again, it was all for the purpose of being _perfect_. I had to be above reproach. A dutiful part of the faction. Shifting into high knees, I grimaced as I spotted movement in the mirror behind me.

In through the door came a very unwelcome face. My regrettable morning warm up buddy for the past week or so - Peter. He had started showing up sometime after getting dragged into the caf by his shoulders. His usually smug face had been plastered with mud and gravel, and I had memorized the dazed expression underneath. Christina dug into the story and found out that he had been drop kicked by a drunk Candor and had to be hauled out of the bar fight by other off-duty Dauntless.

Apparently that had wounded his pride and kick started his return to the gym. What had been my tiny fragment of schadenfreude turned into a new layer to my personal hell.

"Still here, Stiff?" he commented as he tossed his towel over one of the benches. That was his greeting for me every day. I turned my gaze back to my form and focused on my breathing. In and out, measured and unbothered.

He, of course, wasn't phased by my cold shoulder. He swanned over to a rack of weights and made a big show of selecting the five pound set. One went into each hand as he started his own reps on the mat right next to me. "I guess you have been learning from the best, so that should help you scrape by," Peter drawled.

I spared him a scathing glare before switching to the next phase of my routine. He was messing with my internal clock with his pointless remarks.

Every lift was met with a completely unnecessary grunt, especially for the amount of weight that he was lifting. I'd see Four run the same reps with double the weight. He paused midway through his set to once again try to rile me up. "You might want to think about how you act, Stiff," Peter commented.

I lifted an eyebrow and glared at him through the mirror. "Do tell," I replied. It was clear that he wasn't going to stop until I had responded to at least one of his inane comments.

He gestured widely with the dumbbell. "With the rest of the faction. You can't just hide away in the gym and with your Initiation buddies. You're just not selling the whole Dauntless schtick. Not really."

I hopped on my foot, trying to regain my balance as I pulled my foot behind me. The distractions were getting on my nerves _and_ messing with my routine. "It's not a schtick," I retorted. "Just because you and I don't get along doesn't mean anything." I hated how his comments managed to dig into my worries though, a sharp jab that had no business being so painful. All my efforts in exercising and in my dedication to my assignment - those were easy. Connecting with the rest of the faction was where my real concerns lay.

"It's just that people are noticing," he said lightly. Then he returned to his set, letting me stew and wonder just what the hell he meant.

It worked, too, which was almost as frustrating. I dropped my foot down and rounded on him. "Noticing what?" I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.

He shot me a look. "That you're too Stiff," Peter said. "And it's not just a leftover thing from Mommy and Daddy. You're selfless in that 'ooo look at me way'. And that's just not Dauntless."

Heat flared over my cheeks and ears. I growled, "I don't want anyone looking at me."

A fresh grin spread on his lips. "Oh, right. That's what I meant. Still very Stiff," he insisted.

I stood there frozen, my mouth open as I tried to think. He wasn't saying anything specific. It was all just _talk_. Yet my mind threw a half dozen moments from the past week alone where I had worried about coming across too selfless instead of helpful in an expected way. Had those actually been too much? Was Peter onto me?

Gnashing my teeth together, I turned back to the mirror. "You're crazy," I muttered darkly. "No matter what I do you're going to keep thinking that I'm some Abnie runaway. So I'm not going to validate your nonsense by listening." I squared my shoulders and leveled a serious expression at my reflection. We were going to keep our word and stop giving Peter an ounce of credibility.

"I'm not the only one noticing," Peter said with careful lightness. He had switched to his other arm after what seemed like far too short of a set. I wanted so very much to just shut him out. All I had to do was keep moving and get on to the rest of the routine.

Jumping jacks were next. I stood still instead, wrestling with my self control. "Drew doesn't count, you know," I shot back.

Peter scoffed. "I mean the higher ups. The smart ones. Smarter than you or I."

My mind filled in the blanks by his implication. My skin went cold and my hands felt clammy. "I don't believe you," I replied hoarsely. My mouth had gone dry too. I stepped over to my water bottle and hastily unscrewed the cap.

"Some people might even think since you _did_ make it through Initiation that maybe you're not just a Stiff. Maybe you're something else, too." Here he was dancing around my greatest fear, that stupid cocky smile now alight fully on his lips. I took another long draught of my water rather than respond.

His expression soured as my silence continued. Maybe it wasn't fun enough for him. "You know," Peter added sharply. "Like a Divergent."

He had to make sure I was getting what he was saying and that, somehow, was the piece that clicked with me. He was just trying to get under my skin with the thought. It was an open secret that Divergents weren't trusted in Dauntless or Erudite but he certainly didn't know about what Tori had told me about just what could happen to those who were found out. Peter was just trying to weaponize the dread that came with the accusation without actually understanding what it would mean. And that meant, hopefully, that he wasn't convinced that I was Divergent in actuality. He was just trying to broaden his bullying.

The hair on the back of my neck wasn't standing on end anymore. I could breathe once more. Down went my water bottle and I walked purposefully back to my mat next to him. "A Divergent, huh?" I asked. He nodded tightly.

"Wouldn't that be kind of interesting? Imagine if someone was clever, brave, and selfless. That sort of sounds like the perfect Dauntless, don't you think?" I suggested. "Someone that would be respected but strong. Tough but strategic. It would be a shame for someone to accuse me of being that kind of person. I don't think my reputation could handle it."

I tipped my head and leveled my last jab with a wide smile. "I mean, after coming off top rank from Initiation, I really don't want to give Leadership any more ammunition to come begging for me to join. So you should definitely think long and hard before presenting anyone with this theory. It would really cause some trouble for me." It was hard to not laugh at how his face reddened with every word.

"That is _not_ what I meant, Stiff," he snapped. "You're- That's- Get off your high horse, would you!"

I lifted a shoulder before starting my jumping jacks. Peter threw down the dumbbells and stalked to the opposite corner of the gym, not having even completed his first full set. I enjoyed the quiet that came with it until he started once again huffing and puffing with each exercise. It would surely come back to bite me that I had apparently embraced his theory, but for now I could take in the end result.

The hunt was still very much out there for Divergents like me. They just clearly shouldn't depend on idiots like Peter to do their dirty work for them.


End file.
